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Asbestos ads don't flood Sessions with angry phone calls

By PHILLIP RAWLS
Associated Press Writer
June 14. 2005 4:47PM

An advertising blitz criticizing Sen. Jeff Sessions' support for asbestos trust fund legislation didn't result in a flood of angry phone calls to his office, but it sure got him upset with the trial lawyers who helped pay for the ads.

The anti-Sessions ad campaign, which aired on TV stations throughout Alabama, "is a good indication of how much money plaintiff lawyers are making off asbestos," the Republican senator said Tuesday.

The weeklong ad campaign started after Sessions was on the winning side of a 13-5 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve the legislation. It would require businesses and insurers to put $140 billion into a trust fund for asbestos victims. In return for the payments into the trust fund, 8,400 companies would have their liability limited. In return for payments out of the trust fund, victims would give up their right to sue.

The payments to victims would vary according to the type of illness, with $1.1 million available to each victim of mesothelioma, a deadly cancer of the lining of the lungs that is caused by asbestos.

That is much less than mesothelioma patients normally get in jury verdicts - even after paying their attorneys, said Bill Levin, a San Francisco lawyer who files asbestos suits and serves as vice president of the Senate Accountability Project.

The group spent $132,000 running a TV ad in Alabama that goes like this: Sessions "says he believes in the Alabama way and states' rights and limited federal government but now supports the Washington way and the asbestos bailout bill, a liberal entitlement program that takes power away from ordinary citizens and gives it to bureaucrats in Washington."

Sessions' office reported getting 115 phone calls about the ad, with the calls evenly divided on the issue.

The Alabama senator said that's not a large number of calls for a hot topic in Alabama. For instance, he got more when Bill Pryor's nomination for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was pending before the Senate.

But Levin said the ad clearly got Sessions' attention, "which was one of our goals."

The president of Levin's group is Mark Iola, a Dallas attorney who handles asbestos litigation for victims. Campaign finance records show Iola and Levin were major contributors to Democrats last year. Iola's contributions included $57,500 to state and federal Democratic organizations and Levin provided $25,000.

The Senate Accountability Project ran ads in Kansas, Arizona and Oklahoma, where Republican senators supported the legislation. In each case, senators talked about states' rights but voted to usurp power from their state courts, Levin said.

Sessions, a former Alabama attorney general, said asbestos suits can take years to get through the court system, and plaintiff lawyers and legal costs often eat up 60 percent of the award. The trust fund would get money to victims quicker and would limit legal fees to 5 percent.

"That's one of the things that has irritated the lawyers. If you have a good medical record, you many not even need a lawyer" to collect, he said.

Levin said the asbestos trust fund has drawn criticism from some businesses that would have to pay into it, and they are threatening to challenge it in court. If that happens, it could take years to fight the legal battles, and victims would go without payments in the meantime, he said.

The legislation now goes to the Senate floor for consideration. Sessions said the bill needs additional review - including looking at what would happen if the trust fund failed - but he still believes it would get the most help to victims in the quickest manner.

Alabama's other senator, Republican Richard Shelby, has not yet taken a position on the bill, his spokeswoman, Virginia Davis, said Tuesday.